Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The home help system is chaotic. There are huge anomalies in it. The changes that are in it now are very disturbing. A couple of years ago, we were all here looking for extra home helps and extra hours and we could not get them, but now the system has changed it is a bit of a trick of the loop. One is being allocated the extra hours but one cannot get the home help people. The ones who are visiting are not allowed to work extra hours. I had a family from Cahir on to me this morning about their elderly mother. They are approved for extra hours but they cannot get them, yet the management will not allow the good people who are coming to provide home help do the extra hours. There are a lot of games going on. It is giving the optics that there is heaps of money, as with the Tánaiste's answer to Deputy Michael Collins. There is but when it comes down to reality, one gets approval and there is a sea change. They will approve you now in reasonable quick time but there is no one to do it and they will not allow the people who are doing it to do extra time. This pressure of having a half an hour or 25 minutes is not good enough.

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